Michel Saldutte, David Sisak, Richard Ewing arrested teen in Homewood

A young black man who claims three white Pittsburgh police officers wrongfully beat and arrested him on a Homewood street described the incident publicly for the first time Thursday as a federal civil rights trial continued downtown.

"Hearing him explain what he went through is like -- I wish could have just taken his place," said Jordan Miles' sister, Kielan. "I had to get out of there. I started crying. I didn't want him to see me crying or anything."

Miles testified that he thought he was in danger when the plainclothes officers approached him in the high-crime area while he was walking from his mother's home to his grandmother's house late on a winter night in January 2010. He said the men did not identify themselves as police or show badges.

They said, "Where's the money, drugs, and gun?," according to Miles' testimony. He told the jury that he slipped on some ice and was beaten all over his body while he was down, and he started saying prayers but an officer pushed his face into the icy ground and choked him, telling him to shut up.

Miles, now 20, is suing over the incident that happened when he was an 18-year-old CAPA high school senior.

"You knew all along they were police officers. Didn't you, Mr. Miles?" one attorney asked.

"I did not know at that time," Miles answered.

Another attorney asked, "Did you tell a friend police mistook a bottle of Mountain Dew in your pocket for a gun?" Miles answered, "I never told him that."

Miles was asked if he told the FBI -- which investigated the case -- that he was coming from between two houses and ran when the officers called questions to him. He answered, "No."

The lawyers for Officers David Sisak, Michael Saldutte and Richard Ewing said Miles had his back turned from them as they drove up in an unmarked car, and that he appeared to be loitering near a house with a bulge in his pocket, which they thought was a gun but turned out to be a soda bottle. They say the officers identified themselves as police and only used force because Miles fought them and ran away.

But Miles said he was walking in the street -- not alongside homes -- because of ice on the sidewalks, and that's when he saw the car pull up and stop in front of him. He said none of the men in dark clothes identified themselves as police before one of them said, "Where's your gun, money and drugs?"

Miles said he was so startled that he dropped his cellphone and yelled, "Chill! Stop!" before turning and running back toward his mother's home "because I thought I was going to be robbed." One of the men dove onto his back and began hitting him in the head, Miles said. After that, he remembers "being hit in my head and my face" while he was on his stomach.

"It felt as if I was being hit everywhere in my body at the same time," Miles said. He couldn't say how long he was beaten, but he told his lawyer, Kerrington Lewis, that "it seemed like it was forever."

Miles said he was eventually handcuffed after one of the men put a knee into his back and pulled his arms behind him but said the officers continued to hit him. At that point, Ewing shook his head while listening to Miles' testimony.

Miles testified he had nothing in his coat pocket, which contradicts police claims they found a soda bottle. Police said they threw the bottle away and didn't keep it as evidence, but Miles and Lewis say that's a story to justify their actions.

The defense attorneys have suggested that Miles' story was coached, and they expressed incredulity that he didn't realize his alleged attackers were police even after he was handcuffed. Still, Miles insists that was the case.

Phone records show police called for a squad car about three minutes after Miles' cellphone call ended, and the cruiser arrived minutes later. Miles said he felt "joy" when he saw the uniformed officers arrive: "I was relieved. I felt I was going to be saved. I thought they had come to my rescue."

Members of the Alliance for Police Accountability, the Black Political Empowerment Project and the Homewood community gathered on Grant Street outside the courthouse to support Miles.